adminCollin Matiza Sports Editor
TEAM Zimbabwe have moved a gear up in their preparations for the 2016 Homeless World Cup by naming seasoned sports administrator Tendai “T-Buns” Zhakata as the general manager of the side that will take part in this annual football tournament in Glasgow, Scotland, in July.
The Homeless World Cup is an annual international tournament that uses football to energise and empower people who are homeless, marginalised or socially excluded to change their own lives.
And Zimbabwe have been part of this internationally recognised programme for close to a decade now with the Young Achievement Sports for Development, who are based at Hatcliffe in Harare, running this project in this country.
In fact, the YASD have helped Zimbabwe to take part in five Homeless World Cup tournaments since 2006 when the country made its maiden appearance at this event in Cape Town, South Africa.
Since then, Team Zimbabwe have participated in four other Homeless World Cup tournaments in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007, Melbourne, Australia, in 2008, Poznan, Poland, in 2013 and in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2015.
Zimbabwe have once again been invited to take part in this year’s edition of the Homeless World Cup which has been slated to run from July 10-16 in Glasgow, Scotland, and Petros Chatiza, the project co-ordinator of YASD, yesterday announced that they have appointed seasoned basketball administrator, Zhakata, as their general manager or chef de mission for this event.
“We came up with several names for this post but we finally settled for Tendai ‘T-Buns’ Zhakata to lead our Team Zimbabwe for this year’s Homeless World Cup in Scotland because of his good and clean track record in sports administration.
“In fact, he (Zhakata) successfully helped the Zimbabwe senior men’s basketball team to go to Hamburg, Germany, in August last year for a three-week training camp ahead of the 2015 Afro Basketball Tournament that was held in Tunisia and we also took this into consideration.
“So, I’m glad to announce that Tendai ‘T-Buns’ Zhakata will be our general manager or chef de mission for this year’s Homeless World Cup in Scotland and we have already started working with him in our preparations for this event in which we are once again aiming to leave a mark after coming out 15th out of more than 60 countries that took park in last year’s tournament in Amsterdam,” Chatiza said.
When contacted yesterday, Zhakata said he felt honoured and humbled to be appointed as the general manager of Team Zimbabwe for the 2016 Homeless World Cup and he was looking forward to working with this group of the underprivileged people before, during and after this global event in Scotland.
“I’ve heard about the Homeless World Cup football tournament for quite sometime now and to be associated with it in my capacity as the general manager of Team Zimbabwe is such an honour and I promise to work hard and make sure the team performs well and do the nation proud by winning some medals in Glasgow in July,” Zhakata said.
Meanwhile, Chatiza also named the players who will represent Team Zimbabwe at this year’s Homeless World Cup in Scotland and they will be led by Blessing Makirimira.
The other members of the team are Lisa Nyoni, Morris Chawanda, Matthew Mukunda, Tafadzwa Keith Mhizha, Farayi Mweta, Andrew Mukototsi and Russell Maumbe.
The team is scheduled to leave the country on July 2 or 3 for Liverpool, England, where they are expected to be hosted by the Liverpool Homeless World Cup Football Club for a week, courtesy of former Dynamos centre-back Chamu Musanhu, who is now based in the famous English city.
Musanhu recently indicated that he has asked the Liverpool Homeless World Cup Football Club to host their counterparts from Zimbabwe for a week and they have agreed to play a number of friendly matches with Team Zimbabwe ahead of the Glasgow tournament.
A number of former Zimbabwean soccer stars such as Frank “Dealer” Nyamukuta, Innocent Mugabe and Liberty Masunda, who are all now based in England, have also pledged to help Team Zimbabwe in their preparations for this year’s Homeless World Cup.
Online Reporter